


The Death of Captain Flint

by zelda_zee



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Future Fic, Kissing, M/M, Not Treasure Island Compliant, Post-Series, alternative ending, though I've never actually read Treasure Island
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 18:56:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8908126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zelda_zee/pseuds/zelda_zee
Summary: Silver sails four days out of his way because he just has to tell Flint in person - though that may not be the only reason.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jauneclair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jauneclair/gifts).



“I had a tale spread of you,” Silver said with a smile he could not repress. It was, he knew, a slightly evil smile. “Hope you don’t mind.”

Flint set a cup of tea down on the table in front of him and sank onto the seat opposite. He looked good, Silver had to admit – strong and healthy as he had always seemed, but with a calmness to him that had not been present in Flint’s seafaring days. His hair was long, longer than it had been when Silver first met him, and it was tied back in a neat queue. His skin was freckled still, and tan beneath it, but not chapped and reddened from salt and sea air. On this out of the way archipelago, where accents were in soft tones of French and Creole and where, Silver imagined, the days and weeks must pass in uninterrupted quietude, the world of war and piracy seemed very far away, and the life of James McGraw, retired merchant and incidental farmer, appeared far less fraught than that of Captain Flint had been.

“Dare I ask?” Flint said, and huffed a rueful chuckle. “Somehow I’ve a feeling I won’t like it.”

Silver took a sip of tea. Not his usual beverage, but he had to admit it was good, as far as tea went. Flint served it from a ridiculous set – white porcelain painted with flowers and birds, with even a matching sugar bowl and cream pitcher. Silver’s hand – dark and calloused and scarred, with dirt embedded so deeply in the lines of his skin that it never washed out – looked incongruous holding the delicately fashioned handle of a teacup.

“You won’t,” Silver admitted, meeting his eyes. “But you should be grateful to me for it all the same. Your disappearance in the wake of our victory left me with a dilemma. As long as the legend of Captain Flint thrived, the legend of Long John Silver had a competitor.” Silver sighed, affecting an annoyance that he had not felt at the time. “Your story needed an ending. So I gave it one.”

Flint’s eyebrows rose, his expression sharpening into avid curiosity. He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Did you now? Do tell.”

“You have not yet heard? Distant as this outpost is, I thought word might have reached you. I have it on good authority that the story of the death of Captain Flint is known throughout England and the Americas.” 

Silver fiddled with his teacup, turning it this way and that to view the tiny painted flowers – yellow, and birds – blue. What a thoroughly ridiculous man, he thought, to own this fancy tea set, to serve his guest, the most fearsome pirate captain upon the seas, a cup of fine tea from it.

“The death of Captain Flint,” Flint repeated flatly. The eyebrows lowered, and he watched Silver with an all-to-familiar expression of suspicion and doubt.

“Tis a sad story,” Silver said mournfully, leaning back in his chair, tilting it to rest upon the two rear legs, no mean feat for a man with only one of his own. “Such an inglorious end to a glorious career.” He shook his head. “In the end, twas the demon rum, I’m told, that did him in.”

Flint’s face went blank. He opened his mouth, closed it again before he was able to speak. “Rum?”

“Aye. ‘Darby McGraw, fetch aft the rum!’ Those were his last words, they say. Twas in Savannah, though how he came to be there, I've no idea.”

Flint stared at him, a frown of such displeasure on his face that Silver had to fight down a fond smile.

“And who the _fuck_ is Darby McGraw?” Flint growled.

“No idea,” Silver said, letting his chair right itself so that he could reach Flint’s silly teapot and pour himself another cup. It really was very good tea. “That’s just how the story came back to me. Someone else must’ve added that bit along the way.” 

He poured a cup for Flint as well and for a moment they drank their tea in silence.

“You had to come tell me in person, didn’t you?” Flint said with a quirk to his lip. “You just couldn’t help yourself.”

Silver shrugged, giving Flint a look of feigned innocence. “I was passing this way,” he claimed, although in truth, the island upon which Flint now made his home was close to nowhere and required a significant detour. Fortunately, Silver’s crew was not in the habit of questioning the captain’s orders and as they had, in fact, required provisioning and as the island in question did, in fact, have an abundance of food and fresh water it was not a wholly nonsensical choice to drop anchor there for a few days. Although it had taken them four days sailing out of the way to get there, a fact which no one amongst the crew chose to remark upon, at least not to their captain’s face.

Flint chose not to remark upon it either, simply raising an expressive brow instead.

“I couldn’t have been killed in battle?” he asked. “Or drowned, for fuck’s sake? Or even – I don’t know – shot over a game of cards?” 

He rose to his feet and went to stand in the open doorway, squinting out into the bright afternoon. The view was beautiful – verdant jungle sloping downhill to the sea, a soft curve of pale sand, a tiny white-painted town nestled in the cove, the azure stretch of ocean and sky beyond, and the _Walrus_ at anchor in the harbor.

Silver said nothing. He didn’t need to explain why he’d told the story that he had. Flint, of all people, would understand it.

“Died of drink,” Flint mumbled. He rubbed his face. “Jesus Christ.” There was a long pause and then he sighed. He turned to face Silver, leaning against the door jamb and crossing his arms. “Well, what’s done is done. Maybe it’s no more than the bastard deserved.”

“He deserved better,” Silver said, “but you know why I did it.”

“Of course I know why you bloody did it.” Flint pushed himself off the wall and came back to the table, reclaiming his seat. “The age of Captain Flint is past and the age of Long John Silver dawns. Even here in this backwater they know your name. It’s the one they tell their children to frighten them into being good. ‘Behave, or Long John Silver will come for you’. There can only be one pirate king at a time, and when the old king dies from drink, well, that’s a sorry end and not a story that can compete in any way with that of the new regime.”

Flint eyed him with an expression Silver was unable to decipher. He could not say if the man was furious with him for maligning the reputation of Captain Flint or if he was likely to be forgiven. Flint was not the forgiving type, although he had forgiven Silver in the past for trespasses that he would not have tolerated from anyone else. 

“I told you once that I would be the end of you,” said Silver. A gamble, to reference that night, when Flint had bared so much of himself to Silver’s view.

But Flint smiled – not the fierce, bloodthirsty smile that once had struck ice into Silver’s veins and not the cynical half-smile that had grown so familiar over the years. This was a wide, toothy grin that lit up his eyes – a smile of delight and pure amusement such as Silver had only witnessed a time or two before and that, as had happened on those first viewings, called forth an involuntary answering smile on Silver’s part and sparked a warm glow in some place deep inside him, his chest or his stomach, he could not say exactly where. It pulled at him, made his skin tingle, always had and the passage of years seemed to have wrought no change in affect.

“So you did,” Flint said. “So you bloody well did.”

“I’m a man who keeps his promises.” 

“Ha! Apparently so.”

Flint sat there smiling at him as if he’d done something particularly wonderful. Silver, who’d planned this whole scenario out ahead of time, found he was now loath to ruin Flint’s good humor by telling him of the parrot. Perhaps a bit of discretion was in order for the moment.

So Flint brewed another pot of tea and Silver told him of the voyages of the _Walrus_ , of the prizes they’d taken, the alliances he’d made, news of the crew and of Nassau. When the heat of the afternoon began to wane they sat side by side on the front porch and Silver asked Flint about his life now. He answered quietly, speaking of crops planted and books read – the uneventful, solitary life that he had made for himself there.

It was when Silver stood awkwardly to leave, making excuses that the men were expecting him, that there was much to be done to prepare for departure, that everything changed.

“Thank you.” Flint put his hand on Silver’s shoulder. “For killing him.”

Silver had the grace to smile apologetically. “You’ll overlook the means of his death?”

Flint shrugged. “What does it matter, how he died? He’s dead, that’s what matters. Maybe now I will be free of him.”

His hand was still on Silver’s shoulder. They had not touched each other often with affection, but the weight of Flint’s hand resting there, the warmth of it, felt right in a way that Silver could not deny.

“I hope so,” Silver said, and he meant it. Flint had for far too long been a prisoner of his own demons.

“If you come this way again…” Flint grimaced and his hand fell away. Flint knew full well that unless Silver made an effort their paths would never cross again.

“ _Should_ I come this way again?”

“Are you asking me if I want you to?” Flint was frowning at him, that familiar crease between his brows. He looked uncharacteristically worried, which worried Silver in return.

Silver wet his lips. He was suddenly nervous in a way that he hadn’t been in years. This was, he realized their last chance. If not now, he would never know. “I suppose – yes. I suppose that _is_ what I’m asking.”

He and Flint looked at each other uncertainly. The turn that the conversation had taken was clearly as unexpected to Flint as it was to him, and for a moment, as they stared at each other in surprise, there was not a thing that was hidden in their expressions.

“I should be glad to see you again, of course” Flint said stiffly, “though I don’t imagine your route will often bring you this way.”

“Not in the normal course of things,” Silver said a bit desperately. Jesus Christ, were they really doing this? Yes, it appeared they were. “Yet I ask again – do you wish for me to return?”

“Do I wish you to return… to see me?”

“For God’s sake, man!” Silver exploded. “Do you want me? I’m asking if you fucking want me!”

“Of course I fucking want you!” Flint yelled. “I’ve wanted you for years!” And then he stopped and stared at Silver wide-eyed, aghast.

“Oh.” A smile slowly spread across Silver’s face. “ _Oh_.”

Flint closed his eyes, exhaling noisily. “You were never supposed to know that.”

“You’re an idiot,” Silver said, stepping close to Flint and placing his hands on Flint’s chest. He could feel Flint's breath move in and out, quick and light, and the pounding of his heart like a drum beating against his ribs. “We’re both bloody great idiots.”

They stared at each other for a pregnant moment; a moment, Silver thought, that was possibly the most dangerous one in a life filled with dangerous moments, and then Flint bent slowly toward him and their lips touched. There was an instant of nothing while Silver’s mind went blank, and then a surge of heat rose in him and he was clinging to Flint, they were clinging to each other, mouths open, breath stolen. He pulled Flint closer and a sound escaped him, a soft moan, and Silver swallowed it down. Flint had a hand at the base of his spine, holding him steady, the other cradled his jaw, thumb stroking down his neck. Silver shuddered hard, his head dropping back and Flint’s mouth was on his neck, hot and wet.

He groped a hand into Flint’s hair, pulling it free from the ribbon and holding on. He could barely breathe, couldn’t think beyond wanting Flint’s mouth back on his as he pulled him in for another kiss. It was even better than before, slow and thorough, a knowing kiss, an owning kiss, and Silver never wanted it to end. 

“I take it you forgive me,” he panted against Flint’s lips when they separated. Flint looked wrecked, flushed and swollen-lipped, his eyes hooded with desire. He was so fucking handsome that for a dizzying moment Silver was faint with wanting him.

“For what?”

“For killing you.”

Flint grinned, devilish, and canted his hips into Silver. “I am, I assure you, still very much alive.”

“Fuck,” Silver gasped. “Inside. Now.”

“I thought you had to go,” Flint said, slyly glancing toward the sea and the _Walrus_ floating in the harbor.

Silver laughed. “I’m the Captain, and I can do what I damn well please.”

“Such are the privileges of command,” Flint said and kissed him again, and they staggered inside, slamming the door behind them, blocking the _Walrus_ , the sea and the rest of the world from view.

**Author's Note:**

> There is now a [beautiful artwork](http://krimsnkramsart.tumblr.com/post/155911973657/inspired-by-zeldazee-s-amazing-story-the-death) by [krimsnkramsart](http://krimsnkramsart.tumblr.com/) inspired by this fic!


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